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GARDEN & DESERT
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Erotic Journal

In the City of Men - Day 4

20/10/2018

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I have taken the crucial decision. Que no passarán, which is obvious. I consulted some websites (in English, not in Polish), and they seem to suggest that I might enjoy a couple of decades, and medically speaking, a new partner at this stage of life might greatly improve my condition. They even offer a summary explanation: "When levels of oestrogen and progesterone fall and levels of testosterone stabilise, they can create a spike in libido."
There was no Nainowale Ne to make the crystal goblet of my heart tremble when I was young. There was only poverty and contempt of my native country, downtrodden femininity as the only option and the only paradigm. Like thousands and thousands of women in the world I had to squeeze respect and romance drop by drop, out of barren rock. This is the reason why no passarán with yet another lie about my female condition. With yet another unspeakable experience. With yet another occasion to retire, to step down, to know my place. I shall not leave before the end. And overall, there is perhaps no question of revenge. If in my country they say that a 45+ woman becomes invisible, I can only answer that all of you, panowie, have become invisible to me since I turned 19. So that makes us even. 
My only worry is how on earth I should tell this to my husband. That due to an increase of libido in connection to my menopause, I request to see myself religiously divorced in order to get a new partner befitting my needs. I guess that, canonically, my request might even be seen as justified or a least debatable, but still it is a thorny thing to say, after twelve years. But who knows, maybe he is also tired of me, more than he reveals.
And that would be of course only a step into the predicament, not out of it. 
For the moment, I bought an impossibly expensive Estee Lauder pore minimizer and, for a compensation, started to save money on food. But to get a new partner befitting my needs is much easier told (or written) than done. Even in the City of Men.
Nonetheless, it is curious to observe that men visibly outnumber women in Amsterdam. No surprise here, it is a city of strong immigration, and migrants are usually young men. Truly are they splendid, especially for someone used to male mediocrity of my native land. From a table next to mine, a Moroccan asks me what is this that I scribble in my travel notebook. History of the future in terms of my erotic life, I should have said, but stammered. He is lithe, almond-eyed and a bit too ostentatious in his masculinity, as they always are (postcolonial male neurosis; Fatema Mernissi's diagnosis that I subscribe). At the table, three pints of Heineken, three of them, three shades of masculinity. Besides the Moroccan, there is a Hollander, and an indescribable, racially mixed Indonesian guy, his profile between a South Asian native and a Yamani trader, over the solid body of a VOC matroos. The City requires a connoisseur. But why must it always be the Moroccan to search the air for scent, the most nervous, the most curious, the first to explore?
There is a new urinoir in stainless steel right in the middle of Leidseplein, with current water and no divider, wall, windbreak, screen or whatever. It took me 30 seconds, when I saw it, to understand what the hell they were doing there, with what do they fumble. Badly designed cash withdrawal machine? But of course, they were having a piss, shamelessly, right in the middle of the crowd, into hardly a shallow concave of the stainless post. So what? They are Men, they are in their City. 
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